Pheromones: Nature's Original Fragrance
How hormonal disruption makes us choose the wrong partners
Have you ever found yourself waiting in line somewhere, or maybe about to start a workout class, only for someone to walk up next to you smelling like they poured a bottle of fragrance over their head?
Strong fragrances can be instantly triggering. Cue the headache, brain fog, and overwhelming urge to cough.
Once you’ve given up perfume, body lotions, and strongly scented hair products, you realize how potent they really are.
Wearing strong fragrances is the modern-day equivalent of smoking a cigarette in someone’s face. It’s inconsiderate and exposes others to toxins they have not consented to.
Now, if you still use fragrances, it may or may not be my goal to convince you otherwise. But only because it’s for your own good. Perfumes are more than a strong smell. They’re actually throwing our entire lives out of whack.
Fragrances disrupt your hormones, increase the toxic load on your body, and prevent you from making good judgments about the relationships in your life. In fact, I think they’re partly to blame for high rates of divorce, increased infertility, and hormonal imbalances.
What are pheromones?
Pheromones are substances that are externally excreted and cause a specific reaction related to behavior or development in people of the same species.
Pheromones can be found in urine, breath, saliva, and skin glands. All of these act as external cues that cause others to subconsciously judge you.
While these are all important, the sweat produced by skin glands can be especially strong-scented. They contain salt, lipids, and hormones that then mix with bacteria on the skin to give off a certain scent. Depending on the state of your health, this smell can deter or attract people to you.
Bad body odor reflects what is happening internally. Various factors like stress, anxiety, poor metabolism, and the inability to break down certain foods all contribute to BO.
Whether you smell good or bad is reflected by your pheromones, signaling to others the status of your health and if you are a person fit to mate with.
How fragrance masks pheromones.
If we constantly cover our natural scent with artificial fragrances, how can we expect to pick good partners?
The truth is we can’t.
We hide our bad breath by using Listerine which kills all good and bad bacteria in our mouths, exasperating disease.
We mask our BO with aluminum-laded, cotton-scented Dove deodorants that clog up our lymphatic systems.
We spray ourselves with perfumes that mimic natural pheromones but are really chemical cocktails that throw our hormones out of whack.
All of these products that we use every day give off false signals, tricking someone into being attracted to us for a reason that may not even be true. The worst part is that this all happens subconsciously.
Pheromones and healthy hormones are key to choosing a life partner.
The masking of pheromones is one thing, but all of these artificial fragrances also wreak havoc on our bodies. This is because they mimic our natural hormones, messing with the delicate balance of what our bodies naturally produce. This then causes imbalances in our hormones and overloads our livers with toxins.
One example of the detrimental effect of messing with our hormones can be illustrated by the side effects of birth control.
Birth control
Birth control is a popular hormone disruptor that many women, myself included, have been tricked into thinking of as a magical solution to their problems without any consequences.
However, this is far from the truth.
One study found that women on birth control became less attracted to their chosen partners after going off birth control.
While on birth control, when their body thought they were pregnant, women tended to pick a partner who was most similar to their family. They wanted someone nurturing and supportive.
However, when your body doesn’t think it’s pregnant, or when you’re ovulating, women tend to choose someone who complements their genetics well.
This makes total sense from an evolutionary perspective. When women are fertile, they want to mate with a man that will help them produce the most viable offspring. This gives the baby the highest chance of survival.
When women are pregnant, they aren’t necessarily looking for someone who will create a genetically strong child, but someone who will support the family.
While both are important in today’s day and age, we need to trust nature to let our natural mating instincts play out in the way they are meant to.
Birth control is unnatural and hijacking the natural mechanisms that help us women choose a solid life partner. No wonder why divorce rates are steadily increasing!
The same idea goes for fragrances.
When we can’t smell someone’s true scent, we are picking a partner based on lies. We can no longer sense their health status- whether they have a disease, eat a good diet, or work out.
Chances are we are picking someone with the opposite qualities of what we really need.
Take action: Ladies, if you’re still on birth control, get off of it ASAP and switch to a natural method like the fertility awareness method (let me know if you’d want to learn more about this by replying to this email).
Men and women- slowly swap out your fragranced products with fragrance-free products or pure essential oils only. You don’t need to make the jump all at once, but once a product runs out switch it out for a cleaner alternative.
You’d be shocked how many things have fragrance. Shampoo, conditioner, hairspray, foundation, laundry detergent, dish soap, deodorant... if it goes on your body or is used to clean, chances are it’s made with fragrance.
Fragrance-free recommendations
Just because something says “natural fragrance” does not mean it’s actually natural. Anything with the term “fragrance” needs to be avoided.
Here are some of my favorite non-toxic, fragrance-free products:
Laundry detergent: Molly’s Suds
Household cleaner: Branch Basics
Deodorant: Puremedy
Body wash: Dr. Bronner’s
Hair pomade: Highland
I’ve never felt better going off of birth control and stopping my use of fragrance. While it can feel weird at first, I can promise you that your life will start to align as it is meant to.
Your nose will become better able to sense the good stuff, without you even realizing it.
You’ll be less attracted to the strong fragrances that once adorned you.
Your headaches, brain fog, and sinus issues will begin to vanish.
You may even attract the partner of your dreams.
- Madison
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